Bishops and Branch Presidents…
During my meeting last night I began to hear how other wards and branches in the Portland area are now holding virtual sacrament meetings. As suspected, nearly all are using Zoom. I kept hearing about Zoom Webinar.
So I did some checking.
First, in my opinion here are some of criteria of what we’re looking for in technology:
1. Unlimited minutes
2. Capacity of at least 100 log ins (I doubt anyone will need more than 100 simply because that’s 100 households)
3. Capability of members, who don’t have Internet at home, to call in and listen to the meeting over the phone (the phone number to call is always in the meeting invite along with the Zoom link; someone would need to call and give it to those who don’t have email)
4. Ability to make others a co-host so they can share their screen
5. Interactivity for 2nd hour classes and meetings (everyone can be seen and heard for full participation; they can turn their cameras on/off and can mute themselves)
6. Privacy for sacrament meeting (members can see and hear the presentation but cannot activate their video or audio)
7. Mute and unmute “panelists” (those on the sacrament meeting program)
I have investigated this, including speaking with Zoom reps. Zoom can fulfill all of the above criteria.
Here’s what I recommend:
• Each of you purchase the Zoom Pro plan (reg $14.99/mo), which I think most of you’ve already done by now
• Purchase what’s called the Webinar Add-On ($40/month)
Here’s why:
• The Zoom Pro gives you the basic plan that will accomplish Criteria 1-5 above;
• The Webinar Add-on gives you Criteria 6-7 so attendees cannot activate their own camera or speaker, like they can when in a Zoom Pro meeting, but you can activate the video and audio of “panelists."
How to buy:
1. I recommend you cancel your month-to-month Zoom Pro plan ($14.99/mo), if you already have
2. Then go to this link and purchase an annual subscription of the Zoom Pro license ($149.90 / year, which comes out to $12.49 / month; a 20% savings)
3. Also purchase the Zoom Webinar Add-on for $40 / month for a total of $189.90
Later your credit card also will be charged $40 per month for the Webinar Add-on, but you can cancel it any time.
Why do I recommend this?
• While I don’t believe we’ll be holding virtual sacrament meetings for a year (you can cancel the Webinar Add-on anytime), I think you’ll agree that virtual meetings are to here to stay. Some of you have already expressed a desire to conduct ward council meetings virtually in the future because it means leaders can participate even when traveling. So an annual license is not a high risk.
• The Zoom licenses that are tied to whomever sets up the account (i.e. purchases the plan), can be transferred fairly easily (in settings) to someone else if you are released, move, want someone else to initiate all video conferences. Note: we are not allowed to share our log-in information with someone else.
• All of you have adequate budget funds to cover the above costs. This is good use of Church funds.
• We need to have confidence that we are using proven technology so we don’t have to worry about the technology, but focus on providing quality, inspirational meetings.
If you have a better plan or proposal, please feel free to reply to everyone so we can all learn together. I hope the above is helpful, especially for those who don’t have time to investigate this further.
President Lewis
P.S. One other excellent idea I heard last night was to play Tabernacle Choir music as prelude and postlude (10-15 min) so program participants can’t start chatting before and after sacrament meeting and disrupt the reverence of the meeting.
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